Monday

Feb 12, 2018 at 11:28 AMFeb 12, 2018 at 11:28 AM

On a trip to Kansas this summer, we found interesting historical stories at the city of Fort Scott.

Originally Fort Scott had been established in 1842, built on some promises and some lies. The area had been intended as a permanent Indian frontier; the tribes who were moved from the east were guaranteed white settlement would be forbidden.

In a line of forts from Minnesota to Louisiana the soldiers were to keep peace between whites and Native Americans who had been moved into the area that had originally been Osage Indian territory.

Then the 1846-1848 war with Mexico brought a great expansion of the United States territory. Soon the influx of settlers making the great migration to Oregon and California was too great to let the Indians keep their land and they were moved to Oklahoma territory.

Fort Scott was closed in 1853. Its buildings were auctioned off and the area became the city of Fort Scott.

Whether to allow slavery in states entering the union had become a major issue. Brutal fighting went on in the area between 1854 and 1861 between the opposing camps, a conflict now known as Bleeding Kansas. When the full scale Civil War broke out in 1861, Fort Scott was reactivated to provide supplies needed to conduct the war in the west.

Under the direction of the National Park Service, the Fort Scott National Historic Site has been restored to what it was in 1840s. Many of the original buildings were still intact and the others were closely restored as copies of the original.

The infantry barracks holds some of the most striking exhibitions we have seen in a restored fort. The 23-minute movie that started our tour was unusual because it starts in 1855, when the fort's property is being auctioned off. As each piece is sold we learn about the building and life during the 1840s.

As we entered the major exhibition, we faced a large screen with a choice of hearing different stories of people who had lived through the period. We chose a slave girl’s story. Standing in front of us, full-sized and in high definition, was a young black woman who told us what it was like to be slave in Missouri and how she had heard that if she could flee to Kansas she would be free.

We also watched the stories of a white pioneer who had brought his family to Kansas to ensure the votes would go to make it a free state. He had lost a young daughter to fever in making the move -- one of the many hardships he faced.

An Osage Indian told his story. He had hoped that cooperation with the whites would lead to Indians being able to hold on to what had been given to them as their territory. Both the Osage Indian and the white settler served in the army, and the slave girl escapes and gets to Kansas.

The fourth and final series of stories shows the people in the previous stories older, and they tell us how their lives had turned out. The Osage Indian is very unhappy because despite his serving in the Union Army he was still shipped off the Oklahoma reservation.

The slave girl got an education and became a teacher. The young pioneer built a successful farm and the family had two healthily boys.

Additional exhibits include manikins clothed in costumes of the period, displays on the Native Americans of the time, a Bleeding Kansas exhibit and a restored brig for soldiers who engaged in bad behavior.

Special attention is paid to introducing school children to the tools, games and children's work of the period, such as stuffing the mattresses with hay. All in all a well done introduction to our country's history.

Reach Wayne Anderson at andersonwp@missouri.edu.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.